Turning Mom’s Life into a Keepsake Book: Meet Storyworth

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*We’ve teamed up with Storyworth to introduce you to an extra special Mother’s Day gift. Turn mom’s life stories into a beautiful hard-bound book using the special $20 off offer (through May 14th) here and at the end of this post.

There’s an old African proverb in my grandmother’s library that has always struck me:

“When a man dies, a library burns.”

We all have stories harbored inside our minds and memories that fade a little bit each day. Maybe we know the basics about our parents and grandparents, but how much do we really know about their lives? Have we opened up their libraries?

Do you know about your mom’s first job or her first kiss? How about the shenanigans your grandma got into in high school?

There are so many things we don’t know about the people we love most. That’s why when I found out about Storyworth, a company that turns your life story into a beautifully bound hardcover book, I knew I had to gift it to my grandma.

Meet Storyworth

Storyworth is an online story-sharing site that takes your memories and turns them into an a book that I promise will be a forever treasure. It’s right up there in importance with personal journals and family photos.

You can also ask your own unique questions like, “What are the lyrics to that lullaby you sang to us as kids?” or “Tell me all the juicy details of how dad proposed to you.”

You answer these fun questions and one year later, your stories are printed and bound into a beautiful keepsake book that you can read around the dinner table or for bedtime stories.

So Easy Your Grandma Can Do It

If you can turn on a computer and answer an email, you can do Storyworth! Every week, my grandma logs into her email, clicks on the Storyworth message, and types her answer to a question. I have learned the most amazing things about her this way.For example, I knew my grandma’s mother died when she was very young, but I knew nothing about this woman. Her library had all but burned down.

But now through my grandma’s Storyworth memoir, I have come to know my great-grandmother and a small chapter of her story.

“I don’t have a lot of memories of my mother. She was 16-years-old when she married my dad and she died in childbirth when I was four years old. She was almost 30 when she died, leaving 9 children.

“A few memories I have of my mother were little things. Watching her rock a baby, watching her do the dishes, lining us up and giving us each a dose of cod liver oil. One time my brother Mark and I heard some buzzing in the ground by a fence post. We started poking sticks down the hole and ended up with a lot of bee stings, which mom doctored with a salve called Denver Mud.

“My dad told me he never knew a better mother than she was.”

I have often wondered about this woman. Who was she? What would she want me to know?

That is how important family history is—family is everything and even the smallest details are what I yearn to know about my parents and my grandparents. I want my children to know them about myself.

The One Mother’s Day Gift That Will Trump All Others

If you want to give mom, grandma, or even yourself an extra special gift this Mother’s Day, give the gift of Storyworth.

Because of Storyworth’s unique prompts, you will learn details about your mom or grandma that you’ve never heard before. Like this one from my grandma’s childhood that makes me smile:

“I remember sitting around with my older sisters at night while they told ghost stories, which was scary for me because we didn’t have indoor plumbing at the time and I hated to go outside to the outhouse.

“I remember one year and my step-mother had made me a new Easter dress. We were ready to go to Sunday School and my older brother, Mark, was chasing me around the yard. I had a hairbrush in my hand and threw it at him. It knocked him out for a couple of minutes. It was a relief when he regained consciousness.”

I love this story and don’t think I would’ve ever heard it without Storyworth. I didn’t know my grandma had it in her! Now I know where I got my softball throwing arm from.

One of my favorite parts about Storyworth is that your whole family can see mom’s responses every time she adds a new story. You can even comment on them!

Just add the emails of people you’d like to include and your whole family can stay connected throughout the Storyworth process.

A Beautiful Hardcover Book

After one year, Storyworth will create and send mom her beautiful hardcover book. Every chapter is a response to the questions she’s written about. You can even upload photos to your book.

Other family members can order the book for themselves as well.

Think of Storyworth as an investment into your family’s history. It is an instant bedtime story and a genealogy of your loved ones with fun and interesting stories you’d never hear otherwise. This is the one gift that will pay off hundreds of years down the road.

The women in your life are libraries full of interesting stories. It would be a devastating loss if those libraries burned down without you reading them. My grandpa passed away over ten years ago and everyday I wish he had a Storyworth book I could read.

A Special Storyworth Offer

Forget candles and lotion this Mother’s Day; give mom one of the most sentimental gifts she will ever get. Right now, HowDoesShe readers can get a beautifully bound Storyworth book of your family’s stories at a fantastic discount of $20 off!

It’s so easy to do! Just answer the weekly email prompts and you’ll get a keepsake book of stories that would have otherwise been lost.

During the course of this year, I have learned so many fun anecdotes about my grandma. The details of her life are like a movie for me now and I can see her as a little girl throwing hair brushes at her brother and knocking him out.

I can see her dating my grandpa and picture their wedding day.

We all have stories that need to be shared. What interesting new things will you learn?

*Storyworth sponsored this post. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

About Nicolette

Is a freelance writer with a Bachelors degree in English from Utah State University. She is a full-time mom of four and loves the outdoors, being active, reading, writing, and observing the world from a unique perspective. You can follow her on Instagram at @nicmckinlay.

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